Nocturnal Waves
A poem, a eulogy
Penelope, since I left Ithaca
I discovered the secret of the Fates:
No thread outside of the conjunction of stars
can stop us, unite us, or save us.
You, Regina, have promised the ancient land
— — — on a summer afternoon
— — — at the Sun’s dying hour
to never land on foreign shores. Forests,
parks,
extravagant halls
and austere ones. The dual nature of
a complex body.
Weaving your web you waited for us. Odysseus
and Telemachus’ son. Weaving the tapestry you conjured
a future where distance is nothing more than a meter,
nothing more than a concept forced upon us by sand and winds.
Twenty years the Nostos. Times void of seasons
and fruit left to be kept fresh between
the tides’ wishes. You are the Salt of the Earth! You are
the brown earth and savage herbs and eternal olive!
Penelope. You knew it. But since when?
O, sweet embrace of waters and cursive languages.
Shall we meet there again? Every season or at every
prayer for the birth — in honey — of the Sun.
We’ll meet, subject and portrait
at the border of solids
there, Return: like nocturnal waves on the beach.
Can’t you hear the rhythm!? And it’s changing
and
the sea’s stream is crushing
in a cave’s shadow
and then
a concert!
Reach Ulysses!
And the harp
and the flute…
Reach Ulysses, Penelope!
Fanfare, and once more
— — When decades are no more than dust
Butterflies (farfalle)…
Ulysses!
